Snitching, does it really work for Americans? Some people believe that snitching can work to improve the quality of life in some communities. While others believe that snitching will tear families apart. Bill Maxwell writer of “Start Snitching” has a view that low-income neighborhoods can benefit if more people started snitching. On the other hand Alexandra Natapoff writer of “Bait and Snitch: The High Cost Of Snitching For Law Enforcement,” opinion is that law enforcement needs to change the way they handle snitches. Both Maxwell and Natapoff have views that can change the way we look at snitching.
Snitching: both authors disagree on this subject. According to Natapoff, “the federal government has been creating criminal snitches and setting them loose” (299). the federal government is letting criminal snitches negotiate the terms to shorten their sentence; some don’t even spend time in prison. However, criminals should watch their backs. Maxwell says, “I do have an answer for catching some,if not all, of these murderers. Snitch” (291). If more citizens would contact the police when they saw or heard of a criminal offense being committed, and this would lead to more
…show more content…
convictions. In conclusion, the snitching laws allow criminals back into communities to commit more crime. Maxwell,s opinion differs from Natapoff, in the way that he believes that snitching is a good thing. If neighborhood citizens,not criminals, would snitch to put criminal offenders behind bars. There is an agreement between Maxwell and Natapoff on the effects that snitching has on low-income neighborhoods. Natapoff writes, “ the fedural government is… setting [criminals] loose in poor, high crime communities” (299). She thinks that snitching is a national problem. Plus, Maxwell, in his article, “studies show that homicides, especially unsolved homicides, destabilize low-income communities (291). Having criminals run a muck in a community can be dangerous. Both Maxwell and Natapoff show that crime is higher in low-income communities. Is it higher because of snitching that gives criminals a free pass, or is it because people are not snitching on a perpetrator? There is no decisive answer,therefore, snitching has its place both with law enforcement and in the hands of the people. The “don’t snitch” movement is something both Maxwell and Natapoff agree on, but the their views differ on why to “stop snitching”.
Natapoff says in her article “... that kids are sporting the ominous fashion statement “Stop Snitching” prompting local fear…” (298). In Natapoff”s view is on how the government promotes snitching. However, Maxwell says, “... “don’t snitch” culture that permits killers to remain free” (292). Maxwell’s idea is that “don’t snitch” is a way to keep murders on the street, and he thinks that if the “don’t snitch” campaign is stopped the people would feel free to snitch when a crime is committed. Even Though, Maxwell and Natapoff are in agreement that the “stop snitching” movement should be stopped, They have every different ideas why it should be
stopped.
The silence has been broken in recent years in federal courts where witnesses detailed the crimes of drug kingpins and many hit men, putting many of Charlestown's d...
Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group, frequently a minority group or subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses menace to society. These panics are generally fuelled by the media, although not always caused by, media coverage of social issues… These panics can sometimes lead to mob violence… (newsfilter.co.uk).
Did you know that many people of the world break laws without even knowing?Frank Trippett in his article,’’A Red Light for Scofflaws’’,asserts that not only violent crime is hurting the foundations of our social order, but also the smaller laws that people casually break. He backs this up by giving examples such as littering and speeding,which people do regularly. He continues by concluding that Americans think that only violent crimes hurt us. The author’s purpose is to show the reader that all crimes,even the small ones,can hurt America’s law-and-order. The author creates a serious tone for the reader.Whether or not the law that someone broke was violent or not,laws are made to stop these violations and keep everyone in check.
Wilson, James and Herrnstein, Richard. "Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime" New York: Free Press, 1998.
In the article "snitch culture comes to Canada," written by George Jonas, explains how snitches were and currently are praised and criticized through the years. Meanwhile, the Canada revenue agency had started an open telephone line so neighbours can tattle on others for wrong doings they have assumed. In fact, many states in the past heavily relied on snitches to be there eyes and ears, for example being a snitch for the Ussr was something to be proud of. Opposite of the Ussr, individuals like Falcone killed his son for snitching, this always leaves a dark stain on families honour. Although, with our snitch culture we praise people who risk their lives to bring in criminals but when they do the same for political stances they are in the
In 1982, the political scientist James Q. Wilson and the criminologist George Kelling psychologist, both Americans, published in The Atlantic Monthly in a study that for the first time, established a causal link between disorder and crime. In that study, called The Police and Neighborhood Safety, the authors used the image of broken windows to explain how the disorder and criminality could slowly seep into a community, causing its decline and the consequent drop in quality of life. Wilson and Kelling argued that if a window in a factory or an office was broken and was not repaired immediately, people who pass through there would conclude that no one cared about that locality. In other words, the people would believe that there is no responsible authority for the maintenance of order in that place. a move to mass incarceration or a nationwide clemency policy, a large-scale shift to more targeted policing patterns, etc. ), shifts in the distribution or composition of the population (e.g. immigration trends), disruption of wide-spread illicit drug distribution paths, and events that significantly modify a nation’s perception of its government’s legitimacy”.
Muncie, J., and Mclaughin, E. (1996) The Problem of Crime. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publication Ltd.
Prior to reading Zimring’s, The City that Became Safe, I had a general understanding of the national crime decline, beginning in the last decade of the 20th century, continuing into the early 21st century. In addition, there were concepts that were brought up consistently throughout my previous JLC classes – Nixon and Regan’s War on Drugs, the Crack-Cocaine Epidemic, Super Predators – that began to appear, at least to me, as simple terms, to explain a complex issue. Individuals would use these concepts as keywords, coupled with the increase in incarceration (i.e., mass incarceration) that served as a deterrent to rising recidivism rates, to explain the crime drop across the nation, without a deeper appreciation and understanding as to the deeper significance of each ‘key term.’ As I will later discuss, these individuals are known as naïve consumers of information. Nonetheless, as I began to delve into the novel, Zimring brought up a topic known as the “New York Difference,” which refers to an unsolved element or technique implemented within New York City that served as a catalyst for the boosted decline in their crime rates, years after the national trend began stabilizing. Nonetheless, I would soon come to realize how – as Zimring mentioned – “little all of us know about criminology,” to the extent of understanding why these index crimes (e.g., homicide, robbery, rape) occurred in great numbers prior to the 1990’s and the techniques that
Rosen, Lawrence. “The Creation of the Uniform Crime Report: The Role of Social Science.” JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2011.
Turner, L. (2010). Inventing fear of crime: Criminology and the politics of anxiety. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 12(2), 133-135.
Broken Windows Policing racially profiles and traumatizes minority groups. Law enforcement agencies are biased when they decide to target African Americans and Hispanics since they have subjective views against these minority groups. Simply put, the policing of misdemeanors and offenders that are responsible for low-level offenses result in prejudicial consequences such as racial profiling or stereotyping individuals that are more likely to be involved in crime. In the article, “Growing Up With Stop-and-Frisk,” Sara Maria Glanowski details the detrimental effects that one Broken Windows Policing strategy, known as the stop-and-frisk policy, had on the predominantly Black community of Brownsville, Brooklyn. Jamal
Snitch Testimony’s are one of the most common ways that someone is wrongfully convicted. “Jailhouse snitch testimony is arguably the single most unreliable type of evidence currently used in criminal trials.” (Covey 1375) They are extremely unreliable and the most persuasive to jurors. The issue is that many them are con artists, and will do anything or say anything to shorten their sentence or make someone else suffer like them. In a perfect world snitch testimony would be a wonderful thing. If someone did something someone would tell the authorities, and boom problem solved he would get punished. But, a lot of times they don’t always tell the truth. Why wouldn’t you tell the truth you may ask? Well, let’s just say that a detective gives a
Delatore, J.E. “Character and Cops.” American Enterprise Institute of Public Policy Research. 1989: 65. EBSCOhost. Web. 12 Nov 2013
MacDonald, H. (2010, January 4). A crime theory demolished. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870359090504574638024055735590.ht